Saturday, November 20, 2010

You Were Always In A Hurry

Where were you going when I passed you walking on the opposite side of the street the other day? You always did have that purposeful look about you. Even as a little girl you seemed like you were in a hurry to get somewhere.

I knew how important it was to you to be on time. Even when you had no particular place to go you liked to keep a tight schedule. It was as if you feared being late for some vague assignation that was loaded with hypothetical possibility.

I suspected you liked to keep moving out of the certainty that somewhere --someplace other than wherever you found yourself at any given moment-- was something you couldn't bear to miss.

But what am I saying? I never understood what was going on in that head of yours. I certainly did find you fascinating, though; there was always something happening in and behind your lovely eyes, and there were an awful lot of nights where I laid awake trying to imagine what the hell you might be thinking. Every once in awhile I'd get a little glimpse; you'd choose to reveal something. Those moments felt like offerings to me, and I used to collect them and try to piece together a portrait of who you might really be.

Sometimes it felt like I was getting close, but then you'd give me some new fragment that didn't fit.

And you never did stop moving, which made it hard to keep you in focus.

I eventually had places to go myself, of course --no place special, really, when all was said and done. My destination was ultimately just the sort of constellation of bland compromises that constitutes most people's ultimate destination.

I can't decide if you were lucky or not, but you were one of those people for whom all would never be said and done. You'd say so yourself, and I can still hear you say it: Never, you'd say. Never, never, never.